Back to Luang Prabang

After spending the night in Xien Kok we find the only transport available to go down the river to Houei Xai is by long tail fast boat. These boats are notoriously dangerous and several people have been killed in crashes. To make matters worse, we are in the infamous Golden Triangle of opium production and people occasionally just disappear and there is still sporadic bandit activity this far up the river. Reluctantly, we decide to retrace our trip as far as Odomxai and pick up the river again at the town of Pak Beng.

The four hour ride from Odomxai to Pak Beng takes us through mountain scenery where there are still some remnants of once great forests. It is still beautiful despite many areas that look liked a war zone. Denuded mountainsides, some still smoldering from the slash and burn agriculture practices are interspersed with fallow rice fields and numerous small villages. It is a rainy day which provides relief from the piercing tropical sun and knocks down the dust and smoke to provide clear views of the dramatic landscape. The road traces the meanders of the Beng River down to its mouth which is the confluence with the Mekong and the town of Pak Beng. Pak means mouth of the Beng River. It is charming port town with several guest houses and restaurants. We find a beautiful room with views across the canyon of the Mekong. The town is empty of tourists and we have a lunch of very decent Indian food on a deck high above the river.


We explore the town’s one street and return to the river near sunset to see a boat come in and drop off about 20 passengers. It dawns on us that the town is just a stopover for north and south bound boats. This revelation is confirmed when the south bound boat arrives an hour later and disgorges 100 people get. The town is instantly full and as night falls we hear the sound of several generators fire up to provide electricity for the next four hours.

The next morning we find ourselves crammed on a boat with the other 100 southbound passengers. We anticipate the crunch and board early to snag a pair of cushy bus type seats while the other passengers only had the option of hard wooden benches.



The Mekong flows through an open canyon with forested slopes towering above. The low water of the Mekong has revealed a phantasmagoria of wildly eroded limestone; some that rise 30 to 40 feet out of the river. Some parts look like a mini Bryce Canyon. The high water marks 40 feet above water level suggests a raging mobile sea that during rainy season must be at least 400 yards wide and hundreds of thousands of cubic feet per second while at its current level it is little more than 100 yards wide and maybe only 50000 CFS. The river is muddy brown from the thousands of tons of suspended silt. It looks like one big oozing mud bath.




The morning mist slowly lifts to reveal a mostly clear blue sky with mutton clouds floating overhead. The often sandy banks rise above us at times hosting small herds of water buffalo. Long bamboo poles jut from the rocks beneath the river villages, providing secure mooring for the fishing canoes. As the day begins to warm, Deb suggests I go to the bar for a tall cold beer before the rest of the mob on the boat drinks it all. We sip our ice cold beer as we leave more and more of the Mekong behind us.



The day continues to warm and conversations become more animated fueled by beer and cocktails from the bar as the multinational passengers are forced to become friends because of the close quarters. Cigarette smoke drifts through the cabin diluted by the fresh breeze entering from the open sides of the boat.

The blue sky rapidly turns to gray as we enter a zone of heavy burning. Smoldering hillsides line the river. Ash drifts through the cabin flecking us with black and gray ash. Sunlight is filtered through the smoke casting an eerie yellow-orange light on the scenery and reflects off the wake fractured water. The smoke obscures the sun and gives us relief from the afternoon heat. At first the change causes a flurry of conversation but soon the boat falls silent as everyone succumbs to the common shared misery as the smoke burns the eyes and lungs. After about a half hour we push through the worst of the smoke as everyone looks back into the gray nothingness we have just passed.

We pass another of the many river villages. Deb thinks they look like resorts with thatched bungalows framed by palm trees gently swaying in the afternoon breeze. Yet we know the trees, smoke and distance hide the gritty reality of the villages. Children scamper in the shallows and wave as we pass.

The river has gentled as we have come downstream. It is now broad and flat with the surface broken by swirls, whirlpools and eddies that hint of rocks and sand bars on the river bed. I stick my head out past the railing to see the bow wave fan out into a wake that stretches from shoreline to shoreline. A fisherman in a small boat tosses his net and as he paddles up on it he gives us a curious look.

As the river broadens even more, we start to see the kharsts along the Nam Ou River that we left several days ago. As we pass the mouth of the Nam Ou we know our voyage is almost over. As the sun sets in the western sky we arrived in Luang Prabang to complete our river to river trip.